Curriculum Overview

Through 48 credit hours of coursework, you will learn essential business skills and values such as a global and real-world managerial perspective, teamwork and leadership skills, cross-functional problem-solving abilities, business ethics, effective written and oral communications, risk and change management, human resources management, and personal presentation skills.

The courses outlined below are required of all Texas MBA at Dallas/Fort Worth students. Because this is a lockstep, cohort-based program, all courses are per-arranged and sequenced to ensure a well-rounded and challenging general management curriculum.

Fall I (10 credit hours)

Business Integrity

This course examines corporate responsibility issues and the tools necessary to manage relationships with external stakeholders such as governments, nongovernmental organizations, and communities in legal, political and cultural contexts.

Financial Accounting

This course examines the information needs of capital market participants in a dynamic and complex socioeconomic system; Emphasis on interpretation, measurement, and disclosure of economic events.

Statistics

This course provides an examination of the strengths and weaknesses of the information produced in financial reports, the pressures faced by management and auditors as they prepare financial statements, the set of information available to business decision makers beyond the information presented in audited financial statements, the difficulties involved in evaluating decisions after outcomes are known, and the impact of accounting information on strategic decisions.

Financial Management

This course introduces you to the concepts and techniques employed in investment decision-making, working capital management, and financing the activities of business.

Financial Statement Analysis

The purpose of this course is to increase understanding of external financial filings (including statements, managerial commentaries, footnotes and other sources of financial information).

Spring I (11 credit hours)

Leading People & Organizations

This course is designed to increase effectiveness as a manager through discussion of organizational behavior and design, and the guidelines for applying these concepts.

Business Analytics & Decision Modeling

An introduction to some of the basic concepts in quantitative business analysis that are used to support organizational decision-making over various time frames and exploration of methods that apply to all areas of an organization, with emphasis on financial decision-making.

Valuation

This course studies subjects such as financial modeling, derivatives in corporate finance, business valuation, and value-based management.

An introduction to the marketing perspective on strategy development and to the elements of marketing analysis. Includes the functional decision areas of the marketing manager, such as products and product lines, pricing policies, branding, promotion and advertising, and channels of distribution, and how organizations use these components to create, capture, and sustain value for the firm.

Summer I (6 credit hours)

Operations Management

An introduction to the issues and decisions involved in the production of goods and services. Focus with be on designing, operating, controlling, and improving the systems that accomplish production.

Managerial Macroeconomics

A study on the macroeconomic forces that influence an organization's decisions: business cycles, financial systems, market structure, and external factors.

Directed Studies in Global Management

Global business practices studied through lectures on campus and trips to international partner schools. One and one-half lecture hours a week for one semester, and thirty hours of fieldwork abroad. Students may count more than three hours of credit only when the work is completed in different locations.

Strategies in Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Rapid changes in business environments create opportunities for new and existing firms to innovate by developing new products and services as well as by creating entirely new markets, delivery systems, and business models. The goal of the course is to equip students with a dynamic view of innovation and entrepreneurship that is based on the most current strategy frameworks and tools that enable firms to create and disrupt industries, design new business models, and lead strategic renewal. The course combines theories, cases, and experiential exercises focused on strategic innovation, business model innovation, blue-ocean strategy, design thinking, and entrepreneurship to offer students a rigorous and practical toolkit for innovation and entrepreneurship.

Fall II (10 credit hours)

Strategic Management

This course is designed to help students develop a general management orientation. Subjects include the role of the general manager, formulating business and corporate-level strategic change, strategy implementation, and developing general managers.

Introduction to the data and tools used to analyze the business environment and enable marketing decision making. Uses real-world data and problems to evaluate strategic market opportunities and assess the impact of marketing decisions in the marketplace. Discusses analytical and empirical tools that address strategic issues of market sizing, market selection, and competitive analysis, as well as product management, customer management, and marketing function management decisions.

Managerial Accounting

This course explores the conceptual and operational relationship of planning and control with management and accounting information systems. Topics include data collection and analysis for short-range and long-range organizational decisions.

Spring II (11 credit hours)

Legal Environment of Business

This course explores selected topics on the legal constraints affecting managerial decision-making and business behavior.

Topics in Strategic Marketing

Introduction to the data and tools used to analyze the business environment and enable marketing decision making. Uses real-world data and problems to evaluate strategic market opportunities and assess the impact of marketing decisions in the marketplace. Discusses analytical and empirical tools that address strategic issues of market sizing, market selection, and competitive analysis, as well as product management, customer management, and marketing function management decisions.

Art & Science of Negotiations

This course focuses on research and theory that help us understand the behavior of individuals, groups, and organizations in the context of competitive situations. A broad variety of realistic contexts and problems will be addressed.

Strategies for a Networked Economy

This course provides an examination of technical architecture, including hardware/software platforms , operating systems, networking and the internet, development strategies, and management issues for the introduction of new technology.

Leading for Impact

This course focuses on leadership development to help students better understand contextual demands and how different leadership styles and behaviors best meet those demands by identifying and addressing organizational challenges or opportunities. The focus will be on community service organizations, intended to highlight resource-constrained and mission-driven environments that challenge leaders to demonstrate sensitivity to the contexts as they help organizations and their employees to realize their full potential.